Validation of WAVELOAD, a 3-D Frequency-Domain Computer Program for Ship Motions and Hull Pressures

The prediction of ship motions, sea loads, and hydrodynamic pressure distributions over a ship hull is an essential component of ship structural design. The immediate goal is to provide accurate hull pressure input for the finite-element structural analysis. To this end, a frequency-domain computer program WAVELOAD based on the three-dimentional panel-method has been developed to predict ship motions, wave loads, and hydrodynamic pressures. The purpose of this paper is to describe the theoretical background of WAVELOAD and its experimental validation using the data from model tests with a destroyer model in head seas. The total factor erro (TFE) was used as an index of correlation of predicted and measured transfer functions. The TFE analysis was applied to the predictions by the other computer programs, PRECAL and SHIPMO7, as well as to those by WAVELOAD. The results showed that WAVELOAD is a reliable software package for sea-load predictions.